Really? So you DO have the right to dictate what price authors can list their books for? Who died and left you boss?
I realize, of course, that you have the right to choose not to buy if you think it's too high, but that's not what you suggested. You said "Best sellers should be $9.99. Everything else should be $6.99 for novels, and $4.99 for novellas." - and you have no right to dictate that.
The higher prices of books may well just be evidence of competition at work.
Seeing that Amazon forced prices down and simultaneously forced the publishers to take a very small cut of their own content, it seems that it was Amazon that had monopoly control and used it to force bad deals onto the publishers - the guys that take all the risk when a book fails to sell. Publishers were forced to accept a smaller slice of a smaller pie, in terms of price. Amazon also wanted to force the publishers to hand over their rights as publishers to Amazon, when all Amazon does is act as a retailer.
Now that Apple is here, the publishers feel they have *choice* and can demand that they receive a bigger slice of the profits from their own efforts and risk. Also in the case of MacMillan they can now tell Amazon that Amazon is just a retailer - which is correct and why MacMillan's CEO referred to Amazon as a 'customer' in his letter to authors.
Prices will rise because Amazon is no longer able to force publishers to assist in low price dumping for the sake of Amazon's market share. Customers may sometimes benefit from dumping, but it doesn't make it fair. We will only know the true market price for an eBook a year from now when the competition has bedded in.
Really? So you DO have the right to dictate what price authors can list their books for? Who died and left you boss?
No. You're wrong that I'm dictating prices. I'm saying the prices need to be this way to get "users" (meaning the majority) buying books. At $13 to $15 it will be niche. That's all I'm saying.
You're basically saying: "How dare you dictate their prices?"
My guess is Steve Jobs is going to enable RENTING of e-books on the iPad.
Apparently you know nothing whatsoever about Apple and Steve Jobs (your relentless posting to AppleInsider nothwithstanding.)
Jobs hates the idea of renting anything. You would know that if you followed the industry. He has resisted renting/subscribing music ever since he opened the iTunes Store. Or hadn't you noticed?
Quote:
This is why the publishers need a higher price shift for purchasing.
Need? Hardly. Want? Sure. We all want more money. Deserve it? As in they should get more money for all the money they're saving from having to print and ship physical books? Riiiight.
No. You're wrong that I'm dictating prices. I'm saying the prices need to be this way to get "users" (meaning the majority) buying books. At $13 to $15 it will be niche. That's all I'm saying.
That's not what you said. You set what the prices need to be. That's not your prerogative.
You can say that you don't think they'll sell at $13, but you didn't say that.
Frankly, if people are willing to pay $25 for a hard cover best seller, I don't see that $15 for a more convenient format is out of line. People pay $8-10 for a paperback, so the proposed $5 to 6 for an eBook is also quite reasonable.
I just don't get the whining from people like you who spend their whole life complaining about everything Apple does and insisting that everything has to be free or nearly free.
That's not what you said. You set what the prices need to be. That's not your prerogative.
Jesus man will you shut up, I know I have no control over the prices are. I'm saying until they are cheaper they won't take off. Just my opinion on the bloody prices, get over it.
That's simply too much money for a digital file, especially a locked-down one. If they want to go the iTunes Plus route and charge $9.99 for a DRM'd file and $12.99 for an unlocked ePub file, now we may be getting somewhere.
Don't forget that on the iPad, you're paying extra for the connection on top of the ebook price. On the Kindle, the price of the connection is built into the price of the ebook.
That's simply too much money for a digital file, especially a locked-down one. If they want to go the iTunes Plus route and charge $9.99 for a DRM'd file and $12.99 for an unlocked ePub file, now we may be getting somewhere.
Don't forget that on the iPad, you're paying extra for the connection on top of the ebook price. On the Kindle, the price of the connection is built into the price of the ebook.
Only if you use 3G. I have WiFi at home and there are a few zillion WiFi locations where you con't have to pay for the connection. It's your choice which to use.
As for the price, many (perhaps most) books will have a LOWER price with the new pricing structure than with Amazon's "$9.99 for everything" structure. The ones that will be more than $9.99 will be the newest best sellers - which are $25-30 in a book store. Frankly, I don't think it's an unfair price at all - 1/2 the price for all of the content and none of the pollution.
""mknopp....Does anyone else think that the eBook trend is a very dangerous one with the current grey area surrounding digital media? Especially since the bought and sold politicians are constantly handing more and more power over content to the media companies.
What am I talking about?
Why literacy and social classes of course.
Go to any decent sized town in the US and you will likely find a second hand book store where a person can buy a used book for a fraction of the cost of the new book. This has setup an entire system where the more affluent people in the US can and will buy a new book, read it, and then sell that book. This book can then be bought by the less fortunate members of our society for a fraction of the original price and read. Then possibly resold again to the used book store. This system allows for the publishers to make their money on the initial sale and allows for the poorer members of our society to afford to access to printed materials, thus helping our literacy rates. All of this is possible because of the First-sale Doctrine. The current cluster F' that is digital media completely violates the first-sale doctrine because the idiots in Washington have been told by the media companies that digital media isn't a sale but a license. I don't think I need to expand on what I think of this steaming pile of... "-----------------------------------
I keep saying the same thing but its not popular I can only conclude that most of the people here have some (profit) interest in this matter either directly or indirectly.
If everyone is talking about fiction then ok you charge what you want but education is a different matter. Some books are essential reading and to have these at the mercy of content distributors/providers is lunacy.
Its quite common that one member of the family passes on his school/college books to his younger brother/sister.
What happens if I want to change the media-reader or just want to see it on my computer?
I loan most of the books I buy to my nearest family and when I am finished with them I hand them over to non profit organizations, Churches etc. Believe it or not some people can not afford to buy books.
""mknopp....Does anyone else think that the eBook trend is a very dangerous one with the current grey area surrounding digital media? Especially since the bought and sold politicians are constantly handing more and more power over content to the media companies.
What am I talking about?
Why literacy and social classes of course.
snip
All this good will end in the name of GREED...
I've already said that's a legitimate concern. So what is your solution?
Ban eBooks (as well as any future inventions ever invented)?
The same thing was true if every invention ever created. Darn those cars. Poor people won't be able to afford them and they won't be able to get where they need to go. Electric lights should never have been allowed - only the rich could afford them and the poor people couldn't study their books after dark. Airplanes? Horrendous. Think about how it will allow wealthy people to see the world and earn more money. CDs? No way. Lots of people had talking books on 8-track and they won't be able to use them anymore.
This has the POTENTIAL to greatly INCREASE accessibility of reading material for people around the world. But whether it does or not will be determined by whether people can make money that way. Almost every major development in the history of the world was driven directly or indirectly by the profit motive. Trying to take profit out of the picture will do nothing to further the status of the poor.
Days after Macmillan essentially forced Amazon to accept higher prices for its Kindle e-book titles, Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corp., said his publishing company HarperCollins is also in talks to increase titles beyond $9.99.
Macmillan will be REDUCING the price of many books and increasing just the newest best sellers. There's absolutely no way of knowing if the average will go up or down, but assuming that more people buy the cheaper books, it wouldn't surprise me if the average goes DOWN.
The difference is that instead of Amazon keeping 70%*, the publisher will keep 70%, so even if the price drops, they can make more money.
*Yes, I'm aware of Amazon's new proposal to let the publisher keep up to 70%, but that's mostly a scam. In order to keep 70%, you have to jump through hoops and basically turn all your intellectual property over to Amazon. Few, if any, publishers would do that.
I personally just love to see the zombies come racing to the defense of Apple no matter what the issue is... Apple defending the $.99 pricing on iTunes (Yea!! Apple is looking out of us!) Apple denouncing the $9.99 ebook pricing (Yea! Apple standing up for the corporate well being of destitute publishers bullied by those nasties @ Amazon!!!)
As we are beginning to see, the same dissidents will complain. Basically the same bunch that wants virtually everything for literally nothing. That or the unilateral ability to do whatever with anything whether they paid or got it for free.
They are basically the same bunch that dis Apple/Jobs/Macs and those that support it/them to any degree.
...
I don't think that is an accurate statement. We do not want it for free, we want a fair price and we don't feel those are fair prices. If the digital variant is two dollars less than the print one, I'll buy the print of the book even though I prefer to read on my phone. The print versions can be shared with friends, family and I don't loose them when I change readers, etc. Two bucks is not worth it to me. Granted, the 14.99 books are new releases which cost more in the print world, but I only buy books once they hit paperback. I read to much to pay the "new release" tax.
This is terrible for consumers. Thanks Steve. This is how you are going to promote reading?
On the one hand there's the iPad and the iBooks to promote accessibility to reading material. And on the other hand, thanks to Apple's efforts e-books prices will be going up dramatically this year. Some innovation. At least with music, Apple brought price down.
I personally just love to see the zombies come racing to the defense of Apple no matter what the issue is... Apple defending the $.99 pricing on iTunes (Yea!! Apple is looking out of us!) Apple denouncing the $9.99 ebook pricing (Yea! Apple standing up for the corporate well being of destitute publishers bullied by those nasties @ Amazon!!!)
Wheee
Exactly. These guys are the type of people who give Mac users a bad name. Rationale only when it doesn't upset the living organism that is Apple Inc. It's weird at the least, and probably despicable too.
*Yes, I'm aware of Amazon's new proposal to let the publisher keep up to 70%, but that's mostly a scam. In order to keep 70%, you have to jump through hoops and basically turn all your intellectual property over to Amazon. Few, if any, publishers would do that.
Have you read the terms? Here's the list that I could find:
Distribution costs are now paid by the publisher
Books must sell for between $2.99 and $9.99 and must be priced at least 20% lower than a comparable physical copy of the book.
The book must support Kindle features, including text-to-speech.
This will only be available for books that are in-copyright and only for those sold in the US.
Exactly which of these makes publishers surrender their IP to Amazon? The 2nd and 3rd are actually good for consumers.
Sorry, but I can't see how Apple's entry into the eBook business is anything but a negative for consumers. Apple couldn't get the same contracts that Amazon did and had to accept what the publishers wanted. In turn, the publishers get to use their contract with Apple to force Amazon into a new contract with higher prices. Apple wins by getting to say that their prices are the same as Amazon's and consumers lose by having to pay higher prices.
Have you read the terms? Here's the list that I could find:
Distribution costs are now paid by the publisher
Books must sell for between $2.99 and $9.99 and must be priced at least 20% lower than a comparable physical copy of the book.
The book must support Kindle features, including text-to-speech.
This will only be available for books that are in-copyright and only for those sold in the US.
Exactly which of these makes publishers surrender their IP to Amazon? The 2nd and 3rd are actually good for consumers.
Sorry, but I can't see how Apple's entry into the eBook business is anything but a negative for consumers. Apple couldn't get the same contracts that Amazon did and had to accept what the publishers wanted. In turn, the publishers get to use their contract with Apple to force Amazon into a new contract with higher prices. Apple wins by getting to say that their prices are the same as Amazon's and consumers lose by having to pay higher prices.
Then you didn't look hard enough. That figure applies only to authors - not publishers. And the fine print requires the author to give up most of their publication rights. They can not license it to anyone else for less than Amazon pays. And they lose some of their distribution rights.
Amazon's near monopoly was great for consumers. It's as simple as that. Amazon was doing to e-books what Apple did for music with iTunes. Apple's entry into the e-books game allows the publishers to play Apple and Amazon against each other, with the end result of higher prices for the consumer. Why couldn't Apple have just worked with Amazon to improve the Kindle reader for the iPad?
Comments
You're wrong, fanboy.
Really? So you DO have the right to dictate what price authors can list their books for? Who died and left you boss?
I realize, of course, that you have the right to choose not to buy if you think it's too high, but that's not what you suggested. You said "Best sellers should be $9.99. Everything else should be $6.99 for novels, and $4.99 for novellas." - and you have no right to dictate that.
Seeing that Amazon forced prices down and simultaneously forced the publishers to take a very small cut of their own content, it seems that it was Amazon that had monopoly control and used it to force bad deals onto the publishers - the guys that take all the risk when a book fails to sell. Publishers were forced to accept a smaller slice of a smaller pie, in terms of price. Amazon also wanted to force the publishers to hand over their rights as publishers to Amazon, when all Amazon does is act as a retailer.
Now that Apple is here, the publishers feel they have *choice* and can demand that they receive a bigger slice of the profits from their own efforts and risk. Also in the case of MacMillan they can now tell Amazon that Amazon is just a retailer - which is correct and why MacMillan's CEO referred to Amazon as a 'customer' in his letter to authors.
Prices will rise because Amazon is no longer able to force publishers to assist in low price dumping for the sake of Amazon's market share. Customers may sometimes benefit from dumping, but it doesn't make it fair. We will only know the true market price for an eBook a year from now when the competition has bedded in.
Really? So you DO have the right to dictate what price authors can list their books for? Who died and left you boss?
No. You're wrong that I'm dictating prices. I'm saying the prices need to be this way to get "users" (meaning the majority) buying books. At $13 to $15 it will be niche. That's all I'm saying.
You're basically saying: "How dare you dictate their prices?"
Get a clue.
My guess is Steve Jobs is going to enable RENTING of e-books on the iPad.
Apparently you know nothing whatsoever about Apple and Steve Jobs (your relentless posting to AppleInsider nothwithstanding.)
Jobs hates the idea of renting anything. You would know that if you followed the industry. He has resisted renting/subscribing music ever since he opened the iTunes Store. Or hadn't you noticed?
This is why the publishers need a higher price shift for purchasing.
Need? Hardly. Want? Sure. We all want more money. Deserve it? As in they should get more money for all the money they're saving from having to print and ship physical books? Riiiight.
Don't be desperate.
No. You're wrong that I'm dictating prices. I'm saying the prices need to be this way to get "users" (meaning the majority) buying books. At $13 to $15 it will be niche. That's all I'm saying.
That's not what you said. You set what the prices need to be. That's not your prerogative.
You can say that you don't think they'll sell at $13, but you didn't say that.
Frankly, if people are willing to pay $25 for a hard cover best seller, I don't see that $15 for a more convenient format is out of line. People pay $8-10 for a paperback, so the proposed $5 to 6 for an eBook is also quite reasonable.
I just don't get the whining from people like you who spend their whole life complaining about everything Apple does and insisting that everything has to be free or nearly free.
That's not what you said. You set what the prices need to be. That's not your prerogative.
Jesus man will you shut up, I know I have no control over the prices are. I'm saying until they are cheaper they won't take off. Just my opinion on the bloody prices, get over it.
Don't forget that on the iPad, you're paying extra for the connection on top of the ebook price. On the Kindle, the price of the connection is built into the price of the ebook.
That's simply too much money for a digital file, especially a locked-down one. If they want to go the iTunes Plus route and charge $9.99 for a DRM'd file and $12.99 for an unlocked ePub file, now we may be getting somewhere.
Don't forget that on the iPad, you're paying extra for the connection on top of the ebook price. On the Kindle, the price of the connection is built into the price of the ebook.
Only if you use 3G. I have WiFi at home and there are a few zillion WiFi locations where you con't have to pay for the connection. It's your choice which to use.
As for the price, many (perhaps most) books will have a LOWER price with the new pricing structure than with Amazon's "$9.99 for everything" structure. The ones that will be more than $9.99 will be the newest best sellers - which are $25-30 in a book store. Frankly, I don't think it's an unfair price at all - 1/2 the price for all of the content and none of the pollution.
What am I talking about?
Why literacy and social classes of course.
Go to any decent sized town in the US and you will likely find a second hand book store where a person can buy a used book for a fraction of the cost of the new book. This has setup an entire system where the more affluent people in the US can and will buy a new book, read it, and then sell that book. This book can then be bought by the less fortunate members of our society for a fraction of the original price and read. Then possibly resold again to the used book store. This system allows for the publishers to make their money on the initial sale and allows for the poorer members of our society to afford to access to printed materials, thus helping our literacy rates. All of this is possible because of the First-sale Doctrine. The current cluster F' that is digital media completely violates the first-sale doctrine because the idiots in Washington have been told by the media companies that digital media isn't a sale but a license. I don't think I need to expand on what I think of this steaming pile of... "-----------------------------------
I keep saying the same thing but its not popular I can only conclude that most of the people here have some (profit) interest in this matter either directly or indirectly.
If everyone is talking about fiction then ok you charge what you want but education is a different matter. Some books are essential reading and to have these at the mercy of content distributors/providers is lunacy.
Its quite common that one member of the family passes on his school/college books to his younger brother/sister.
What happens if I want to change the media-reader or just want to see it on my computer?
I loan most of the books I buy to my nearest family and when I am finished with them I hand them over to non profit organizations, Churches etc. Believe it or not some people can not afford to buy books.
All this good will end in the name of GREED...
""mknopp....Does anyone else think that the eBook trend is a very dangerous one with the current grey area surrounding digital media? Especially since the bought and sold politicians are constantly handing more and more power over content to the media companies.
What am I talking about?
Why literacy and social classes of course.
snip
All this good will end in the name of GREED...
I've already said that's a legitimate concern. So what is your solution?
Ban eBooks (as well as any future inventions ever invented)?
The same thing was true if every invention ever created. Darn those cars. Poor people won't be able to afford them and they won't be able to get where they need to go. Electric lights should never have been allowed - only the rich could afford them and the poor people couldn't study their books after dark. Airplanes? Horrendous. Think about how it will allow wealthy people to see the world and earn more money. CDs? No way. Lots of people had talking books on 8-track and they won't be able to use them anymore.
This has the POTENTIAL to greatly INCREASE accessibility of reading material for people around the world. But whether it does or not will be determined by whether people can make money that way. Almost every major development in the history of the world was driven directly or indirectly by the profit motive. Trying to take profit out of the picture will do nothing to further the status of the poor.
Days after Macmillan essentially forced Amazon to accept higher prices for its Kindle e-book titles, Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corp., said his publishing company HarperCollins is also in talks to increase titles beyond $9.99.
Way to go, Steve. Thanks fer nothing.
Way to go, Steve. Thanks fer nothing.
Would you read the articles?
Macmillan will be REDUCING the price of many books and increasing just the newest best sellers. There's absolutely no way of knowing if the average will go up or down, but assuming that more people buy the cheaper books, it wouldn't surprise me if the average goes DOWN.
The difference is that instead of Amazon keeping 70%*, the publisher will keep 70%, so even if the price drops, they can make more money.
*Yes, I'm aware of Amazon's new proposal to let the publisher keep up to 70%, but that's mostly a scam. In order to keep 70%, you have to jump through hoops and basically turn all your intellectual property over to Amazon. Few, if any, publishers would do that.
What are you talking about?
I personally just love to see the zombies come racing to the defense of Apple no matter what the issue is... Apple defending the $.99 pricing on iTunes (Yea!! Apple is looking out of us!) Apple denouncing the $9.99 ebook pricing (Yea! Apple standing up for the corporate well being of destitute publishers bullied by those nasties @ Amazon!!!)
Wheee
As we are beginning to see, the same dissidents will complain. Basically the same bunch that wants virtually everything for literally nothing. That or the unilateral ability to do whatever with anything whether they paid or got it for free.
They are basically the same bunch that dis Apple/Jobs/Macs and those that support it/them to any degree.
...
I don't think that is an accurate statement. We do not want it for free, we want a fair price and we don't feel those are fair prices. If the digital variant is two dollars less than the print one, I'll buy the print of the book even though I prefer to read on my phone. The print versions can be shared with friends, family and I don't loose them when I change readers, etc. Two bucks is not worth it to me. Granted, the 14.99 books are new releases which cost more in the print world, but I only buy books once they hit paperback. I read to much to pay the "new release" tax.
On the one hand there's the iPad and the iBooks to promote accessibility to reading material. And on the other hand, thanks to Apple's efforts e-books prices will be going up dramatically this year. Some innovation. At least with music, Apple brought price down.
I personally just love to see the zombies come racing to the defense of Apple no matter what the issue is... Apple defending the $.99 pricing on iTunes (Yea!! Apple is looking out of us!) Apple denouncing the $9.99 ebook pricing (Yea! Apple standing up for the corporate well being of destitute publishers bullied by those nasties @ Amazon!!!)
Wheee
Exactly. These guys are the type of people who give Mac users a bad name. Rationale only when it doesn't upset the living organism that is Apple Inc. It's weird at the least, and probably despicable too.
*Yes, I'm aware of Amazon's new proposal to let the publisher keep up to 70%, but that's mostly a scam. In order to keep 70%, you have to jump through hoops and basically turn all your intellectual property over to Amazon. Few, if any, publishers would do that.
Have you read the terms? Here's the list that I could find:
- Distribution costs are now paid by the publisher
- Books must sell for between $2.99 and $9.99 and must be priced at least 20% lower than a comparable physical copy of the book.
- The book must support Kindle features, including text-to-speech.
- This will only be available for books that are in-copyright and only for those sold in the US.
Exactly which of these makes publishers surrender their IP to Amazon? The 2nd and 3rd are actually good for consumers.Sorry, but I can't see how Apple's entry into the eBook business is anything but a negative for consumers. Apple couldn't get the same contracts that Amazon did and had to accept what the publishers wanted. In turn, the publishers get to use their contract with Apple to force Amazon into a new contract with higher prices. Apple wins by getting to say that their prices are the same as Amazon's and consumers lose by having to pay higher prices.
Have you read the terms? Here's the list that I could find:
- Distribution costs are now paid by the publisher
- Books must sell for between $2.99 and $9.99 and must be priced at least 20% lower than a comparable physical copy of the book.
- The book must support Kindle features, including text-to-speech.
- This will only be available for books that are in-copyright and only for those sold in the US.
Exactly which of these makes publishers surrender their IP to Amazon? The 2nd and 3rd are actually good for consumers.Sorry, but I can't see how Apple's entry into the eBook business is anything but a negative for consumers. Apple couldn't get the same contracts that Amazon did and had to accept what the publishers wanted. In turn, the publishers get to use their contract with Apple to force Amazon into a new contract with higher prices. Apple wins by getting to say that their prices are the same as Amazon's and consumers lose by having to pay higher prices.
Then you didn't look hard enough. That figure applies only to authors - not publishers. And the fine print requires the author to give up most of their publication rights. They can not license it to anyone else for less than Amazon pays. And they lose some of their distribution rights.